Archive of articles - August 2002, page 10

Reader feedback: Article highlights "must-see" Slovak region

MPs to end term, mull Schuster vetoes

PRE-OS to buy SAD Poprad stake

Ano financed by party leader

LOOKING AT the financing of the New Citizen's Alliance (ANO) party, it truly seems to be a one-man business."Chairperson Pavol Rusko gives the most finances," said Jozef Heriban, member of the party's executive council. "Other sources of income include membership fees and money from sponsors, but members' contributions are the dominant source," he added.

Crown up onpoll results

ŽS calls Sk2.2 bil. loss 'positive'

Forestry sector profits up for 2001

Agency aims at objective Roma issues reporting

"IN OUR first hundred days, we've published 300 articles," said Kristína Magdolenová, the organiser behind Roma Press Agency (RPA), a Košice-based news organisation created to address the image of Roma in the Slovak media.After more than two years of fine-tuning the project and looking for sponsors, RPA secured financial support from the Open Society Institute, and kicked off in April 2002, with a full-time staff of seven, and eight external journalists working on stipends.

Summer nights at the chalupa, and late good mornings

MARIE-HÉLŢENE CÔTÉ is Canadian from Montreal, Quebec and has been living in Slovakia for three and a half years. She is currently working as a lawyer in the Bratislava office of Linklaters, an international law firm.

Mayor's hunger strike brings some success

Vivendi eyes Slovak water treatment

Reader feedback: The only thing "enormous" about Rusko is his ego.

Nitra prepares fortheatre festival

THE WESTERN Slovak town of Nitra will be holding the 11th annual international Divadelná Nitra theatre festival from September 20 till 25, presenting fourteen theatre groups from nine different countries.Two countries will be participating for the first time in the festival - Israel, represented by Tel Aviv's Inbal Pinto Dance Company and Norway, with the participation of Oslo-based theatre company Det Norske Teatret.

New Accounting Law

Recently, the Slovak president has signed the new Accounting Law that should become effective on 1 January 2003. The purpose of the new Accounting Law is to bring Slovak accounting rules into harmony with European Union standards.The new Accounting Law more precisely defines obligations of accounting entities, for example, companies or individual entrepreneurs, and is stricter than the current one. If accounting entities breach their obligations, Slovak tax authorities will impose penalties of up to one to three per cent of the value of an entity's assets before adjustments, depending on what obligations have not been followed. These amounts are higher than current penalties, which reach a maximum of Sk1 million.The major requirement on accounting entities is to truly show their economic situation and results. The accounting entities will have to disclose all important and relevant information such that it is understandable, comparable and reliable. For example, audited entities will have to also report the following:

Nitra region writes the first pages of Slovak history

BEFORE THE ninth century, Catholic Church ceremonies were provided only in three languages: Greek, Latin and Hebrew. The situation changed, however, when two missionaries from Thessalonica entered Slavic territory and codified the local cultural language based upon an Agean-Macedonian dialect, uniting the various central Slavic dialects under the language of Old Church Slavonic."The brothers Cyril and Method were ahead of their time. With their activities, they managed to convince the pope to raise the Slavic language to an official church language," says historian Anton Števko, director of the Ponitrianske Museum in Nitra.

More professionals to guard borders

Ano are Černá's type of people

EVA Černá, a popular presenter from the private TV Markíza, launched and owned by Pavol Rusko, admits to being forced into politics by her one-time TV boss, now leader of the non-parliamentary New Citizens Alliance (Ano) party.Černá, a former Markíza reporter whose beat was crime and social issues, hopes to work in the social sphere if her party enters parliament after the September elections. She was one Ano's founding members in April 2001 and is currently number four on the party's candidate list.But her political entry was not quite a voluntary move; rather, Černá says, she succumbed to the continuous convincing of Rusko himself.

Slovakia from a birds-eye view

PILOT Jozef Pristach began flying gliders in 1972. Later, he switched to small, one- and two-engine airplanes. Today, faithful to the same machines, he shows the ground from the air also to others."When I flew over Austria, Switzerland or Italy, basically all you could see there were the Alps. In Croatia you can see the sea. America, apart from California, is mostly flat. Yeah, all that is beautiful, but any variances soon disappear and you watch the same thing over and over," he says. "But here, the sight changes from the moment you lift off the ground."

Speed hurts quality in new laws

DESPITE the participation of foreign and domestic experts and institutions in crafting a wide range of legislation over the past four years, their input was limited, say analysts, reducing the overall quality of all but a few new laws.Government representatives and analysts have said that many laws passed during Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda's election term had been prepared by narrow groups of people within the state administration, who had refused the help of external experts."This has unfortunately happened, and laws in many cases over the last four years have been drafted or amended without the broad involvement of different experts - often just to formally fulfil what has been required from the European Union (EU), without really looking at the final quality [of legislation]," said Katarína Mathernová, advisor to Deputy Prime Minister for Economy Ivan Mikloš.